Stardust Rated R?

If you’ve seen any of the trailers or advertising materials for Stardust, the first thing that probably popped into your head was “oh another family fantasy movie”. Well, not so much. Though the movie’s marketing campaign seems to be clearly targeted at kids, and the film itself is bright and colorful and silly looking in the way that children’s movies often are, the MPAA has slapped it with an R rating.

The news comes from JoBlo, where they’ve been surfing The Hollywood Reporter’s subscription only ratings section (which I cannot afford to access). But I can accessthe MPAA’s official site and there Stardust has been rated PG-13 for “fantasy violence and some risque humor”. But JoBlo says the rating has been bumped to an R for “fantasy violence and risque humor”. Wait, how can it get two different ratings for the same reason? Something is amiss.

Could someone have made some sort of horrible title? This is Stardust we’re talking about here, a movie which features Michelle Pfeiffer being towed by goats. And not scary goats either. Soft, cuddly, milking goats. The kind you find in petting zoos. This is cannot possibly be a movie targeted primarily at adult audiences, unless they’re targeting adult audiences with a festish for infantilism.

If this is true and the movie really has been upgraded to an R, then Paramount had better start cutting footage until they can squeak by with at least a PG-13 or Stardust is doomed to be dead on arrival.

Josh Tyler